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Until modern times the Christian Scriptures – Old and New Testaments – have been closed off to the majority of Christian adherents. Access to the texts has been restricted through both physical and linguistic impediments. While modern critics of religious traditions interpret this as a ploy to preserve patriarchal and oppressive authority, this could not be further from the truth, regardless of certain human abuses perpetrated over time. Instead, access to the Scriptures was restricted to those trained to interpret them, and who in turn provided these interpretations to the majority.
This is clearly the case when the Jewish people returned from the exile in Babylon and dedicated themselves afresh to the Torah and its path of life. As the prophet Ezra read to the essembled people
..all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, ... And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. ... Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
Nehemiah 8:1, 3, 7-8.
Schuon explains the value of the process:
The role of the orthodox and inspired commentators is to intercalate in sentences, when too elliptic, the implied and unexpressed clauses, or to indicate in what way or in what sense a certain statement should be taken, besides explaining the different symbolisms, and so forth. It is the orthodox commentary and not the word-for-word meaning of the Torah that acts as law. The Torah is said to be “closed”, and the sages “open” it…
from ‘Keys to the Bible', pp. 102-103.
This is the case because the Scriptures are by their very nature esoteric and potentially dangerous to those not prepared to understand them, those who do not have “ears to hear”. This pitfall is evidenced by damage being done to the Christian tradition by literalistic fundamentalism, which – masquerading as primordial Christianity – is one of the greatest dangers currently facing that faith.
In order to understand the nature of the Bible and its meaning, it is essential to have recourse to the ideas of both symbolism and revelation; without an exact and, in the measure necessary, sufficiently profound understanding of these key ideas, the approach to the Bible remains hazardous and risks engendering grave doctrinal, psychological, and historical errors.
from ‘Keys to the Bible', p. 101.
In the short essay ‘Keys to the Bible' Schuon provides, in outline, the hermeneutic ‘equipment' required to plumb the esoteric depths of Scripture.
…the word-for-word meaning practically never suffices by itself and… apparent naïveties, inconsistencies, and contradictions resolve themselves in a dimension of profundity for which one must possess the key. The literal meaning is frequently a cryptic language that more often veils than reveals and that is only meant to furnish clues to truths of a cosmological, metaphysical, and mystical order…
from ‘Keys to the Bible', p. 101.